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ON SPREADING OSHO'S MESSAGE AND LEADING OTHERS

31-12-1985

BELOVED OSHO,
MORE THAN ANYTHING ELSE I WANT YOUR VISION TO HAPPEN. WHEN I AM NOT WITH YOU, AND I AM OUT IN THE WORLD, ALONE, WHAT PART CAN I PLAY IN HELPING YOUR VISION TO HAPPEN?

Just be yourself, utterly yourself. And never think in terms of how you can help my vision to happen in the world, because that's what makes a missionary – and I am against missionaries. They are the poisoners. Their intention is good, they want to spread something which they feel is immensely valuable, but a missionary does not know that what he is trying to spread is not his own experience. So I would like to make it clear that you just be yourself, and that will be the way of spreading my message to people, because that's my message – to be yourself authentically, sincerely. It is not a question of saying something to somebody; it is a question of being somebody in a way that the vision radiates from you... that the people feel that something has happened to you that has not happened to them... that there is something in you that they are missing... that you are full and they are empty... that you can give and yet you will not be losing anything. And they are only beggars; they cannot give, they can only take. And whatsoever they take also disappears soon because it is not their own. I would not like my people to be like Christian missionaries.


Question :-THIS MORNING YOU SAID SOMETHING ABOUT THAT BELIEVING IS JUST CARRYING ON KNOWLEDGE FROM SOMEBODY ELSE. BUT ISN'T THAT EXACTLY WHAT THESE SANNYASINS ARE DOING?

Answer:-No.


Question :-THEY'RE TAKING YOUR KNOWLEDGE TO THEMSELVES.

Answer:-No. No. They are not. They are experimenting, they are meditating; and unless they experience, they are not allowed to spread anything. It is none of their business. I'm alone enough. I have my ways, just sitting here in this chair I can flood the whole world with my ideas. What is the need for them? They have to experience first. Unless it becomes their own, they are not to become missionaries. I hate the word missionary. Each sannyasin should speak on his own authority, then there is strength.

Now, if it is not your experience, from where you are going to have strength? Books and knowledge derived from books cannot be your strength. I want my people to be strong, that if somebody does the same thing as I did to Stanley Jones they need not say, that "It is not our experience, we have believed in a master and we are repeating like parrots." No, that will be ugly. I would not like these people to say that. It is better to say, "I don't know."

Unless you know, don't bother to say anything to anybody. When you know, you will have to say -- because then you become just like a rain cloud, which is so full of water that it has to rain somewhere or other. The moment you know you become a rain cloud, and then it is something totally different. You are not a missionary; you are not changing anybody and trying to convert him to your faith. You don't have any faith, you have certain experience and out of sheer love you are sharing it. If that sharing transforms the man that is a different thing; it is not conversion, it is transformation.

(The Last Testament)

1970

You have to remember that no matter how involved you become in this work; it is not the most important thing. The most important thing is that bliss and light descends in your life. If you have that, you will be able to share. If you don't have that, you will not be able to share.

So we do not want a functionary who is not a seeker. We don't need such functionaries, because if not today, then tomorrow, that functionary will start suffering. He will get into trouble and he will through the whole responsibility unto us: "They got me entangled in some work and I lost everything."

A friend, Manik Prabhu, who is himself from Pune, went to Vinoba. He first went to Ramkrishna Mission and they placed him in a hospital – so for three or four years he served in a hospital. Then he felt, "This is okay, I could have done this work in any hospital, but what has it accomplished? It has not taken me anywhere. I am still where I was before."

He left and went to Vinoba. Vinoba said," For ten years, walk aound the whole country taking my literature to every village."


The poor man started going from village to village with his bag of publications. He has been traveling around for two years now. And about three days ago he came to Jabalpur and came to see me.

So I said to him,"Now a second hospital round has started!"
It is good that he has realized this after a just few years: "This is a hospital, all fine and good, but what has this changed within me?"

What will he get by selling Gita Pravachen – Vinoba's book? Or if I take Gita Pravachan away from him and instead give him our Perfect Way or Seeds of Wisdom and ask him to go around selling them from village to village for ten years, what will that do for him?

So I told him, "If you have no idea that this is secondary and that something else, which is not to be forgotten, is central, then just as those hospital days went to waste, so will these ten years. Otherwise what will bring to people? And from where does this question of 'bring to people' even arise?" So the seeker becomes first, his being a worker is absolutely secondary. And if you have to lose one of the two, let go of being a worker, not of being a seeker.

You will find many people ready to work immediately, but remember: only if doing takes from the centre of no-doing is it meaningful, only then is it spiritual; otherwise not. The centre that we are going to create is for teaching non-doing. So don't let it happen that you become just a worker. Then the whole point is lost. What would be accomplished through building such a centre? It would be futile, it would have no value.

(Work is : Love Made Visible)


"For a disciple the work of his Master is above all, to surrender to him is his whole 'sadhana', that only is his 'samadhi', his achievement."

(Swami Chaitnya Kirti)

" I do not teach surrender, I teach Meditation."
"Meditation is primary, the work is secondary
OSHO


BELOVED OSHO,
I HAVE A QUESTION – I JUST MADE IT UP. WHAT I SEE HAPPENING IN EUROPE FOR THE LAST MONTHS, IS THE ATTITUDE THAT RELIGION IS DEAD AND LEADERS ARE "OUT." YOU HAVE SHOWN ME THE MEANING OF RELIGION, AND I CONSIDER MYSELF A LEADER, SO I DECIDED TO CALL MYSELF A RELIGIOUS LEADER. EVERYBODY FREAKED OUT, SAYING, "YOU ARE NUTS – THAT IS NOT THE THING TO DO TODAY." I SAID, "THAT'S WHY I'M DOING IT!" OSHO, WHAT DO YOU THINK?

The question is very significant.

Religiousness simply means a challenge to grow, a challenge for the seed to come to its ultimate peak of expression, to burst forth in thousands of flowers and release the fragrance that was hidden in it. That fragrance I call religiousness. It has nothing to do with your so-called religions, it has nothing to do with God, it has nothing to do with priesthood: it has something to do with you and your possibilities of growth.
So I have removed all the barriers. And I can understand your problem. I have made you religious, I have made you a religious leader, and naturally, suddenly I have taken everything away from you. The situation is such... I found you crying and weeping, in misery, in anguish, and it was not the time to talk about religiousness. You needed a few toys to play with – I gave you the toys. You enjoyed the toys; you stopped crying, you forgot your misery, you were happy, you were singing and dancing. But the problem is that that is not the end of your potential, and I was so much concerned that you may get stuck in this superficial happiness, joy...


I had to take away those toys – you may get too identified with them, you may cling to them because they gave you a moment of joy. Those toys have taken your tears away, you have forgotten your worries and your anguish. Those toys have proved something like opium. Before you get too addicted to those toys, a real master has to take them away.

Only a false master can be happy with your happiness, because you will be grateful to him – although you are living in an illusion. Toys cannot give you the authentic, the real. The original face cannot be revealed by them. Yes, they can keep you engaged, occupied, so that you can forget yourself. But the real question is not to forget yourself but to remember.

Now those toys are a hindrance. They did their work, they have taken away your tears. They did their work, they have given you a consolation; at least you are now in a position where something of the higher can be talked about. Those toys have to be taken away quickly. Given time, you will start carrying those toys with you twenty-four hours a day, just like little children with their teddy-bears; they cannot sleep without them, they cannot go anywhere without them. They have become almost part of their being. Naturally, you will be in an embarrassing situation – because I gave you religion, I gave you a certain leadership. You created around you a following. You created, converted, convinced people of the truth of the new religion. And the more people were convinced by you, the more you were convinced that certainly you are a great leader.


11-01-1986

And then suddenly, in the middle of a sweet dream, I wake you up and tell you that it is all nonsense: there is no religion, there is no leadership, there is no possibility of any organized truth, and there is no way that somebody can represent it. It is very shattering. It takes away the earth, and you find yourself hanging in a limbo. But I want you to allow this situation to penetrate you as deeply as possible so that you can be free, and you can also make those people who have come under your influence free.

It is very easy to influence somebody, to convert somebody, to create a following; it is very difficult to unconvince him – to say that you are no longer a leader, in fact you have never been a leader; that there is no religion, that you were talking in your dreams.

It needs guts to say to people, "I am not your savior," to say to people, "I am not your leader; I am a seeker, just the way you are a seeker. At the most we can be fellow travelers, we can be friends, but that ugly relationship of the leader and the follower does not exist anymore.

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